Overbooked is a website for ravenous and omnivorous readers...

Providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction

overbooked.com: a resource for readers

Picaresque Fiction Stars

 

" being a type of fiction dealing with the episodic adventures of a usually roguish protagonist <a picaresque novel>" . - Websters Dictionary

 

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
  • Crofton's Fire
    Author: Coplin, Keith
    Publisher: Putnam $ 21.95 ISBN: 0399151125 Date: 2004
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    A highly original first novel, in which a green second lieutenant barely escapes Little Bighorn - only to find that his life's adventures have just begun.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction | Western Stars | Fiction & Mystery Debuts
    Updated 11.25.03
  • Lord Baltimore
    Author: Doster, Stephen
    Publisher: Blair $ 22.95 ISBN: 0895872641 Date: 2002
    starLibrary Journal
    Partly an homage to classics ranging from Don Quixote to Huck Finn, Lord Baltimore is a novel that creates its own universe and whose characters walk the line between the real and the fantastic.
    Updated 4/24/02
  • The Lies of Locke Lamora
    Author: Lynch, Scott
    Publisher: Spectra $ 23 ISBN: 0553804677 Date: 2006
    starBooklist
    Debut author Lynch pens a witty and fast-paced narrative that is nearly as much of a con as the wily schemes of its hero.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts | Adult Books for Teens | Alex Award Read-Alikes: Gaiman
    Updated 5.4.06
  • The Puttermesser Papers
    Ozick, Cynthia
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $23 ISBN: 0679454764 Date: 1997
    starPublishers WeeklystarKirkusstarBookliststarLibrary Journal
    National Book Award Finalist | PW Best Books of '97
    NYTBR Editor's Choice | Booklist Editors' Choice
    Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she neverthe less turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes lost, and - even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser - the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
  • The Autograph Man
    Author: Smith, Zadie
    Publisher: Random $ 26 ISBN: 037550186x Date: 2002
    starLibrary Journal
    The eagerly anticipated second novel form Smith about an autograph trader on a picaresque journey in search of enlightenment.
    Updated 10.16.02
  • The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
    Author: Udall, Brady
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393020363 Date: 2001
    starKirkusstarPW
    Half Apache and "mostly orphaned", Edgar's trials begin on an Arizona reservation at the age of seven when the mailman's jeep accidentally runs over his head. Through it all, readers will root for this irresistible innocent who never truly loses heart, and whose quest for the mailman leads him to an unexpected home.
    Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
    Updated 5/29/01
  • Tipping the Velvet
    Author: Waters, Sarah
    Publisher: Riverhead List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 1573221368 Date: 1999
    starPW
    "Lavishly crammed with the songs, smells, and costumes of late Victorian England" (The Daily Telegraph), this delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of a young girl whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars

And . . .

  • The Sot-weed Factor
    Author: Barth, John
    Date: 1967
    Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, this modern classic is a hilarious tribute to all the most insidious human vices with a hero who is "one of the most diverting . . . to roam the world since Candide".(Time).
    Updated 10.16.06
  • The Wapshot Chronicle
    Author: Cheever, John
    Date: 1957
    When The Wapshot Chronicle winner of the 1958 National Book Award, was published in 1957, Cheever was already recognized as a writer of superb short stories. Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village.
    Updated 10.16.06
  • The Ginger Man
    Author: Donleavy, J.P.
    Date: 1965
    Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J.P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable -- and he satisfies it with endless charm.
    Updated 10.16.06

Classics

  • Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  • Big Money by John Dos Passos
  • Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
  • The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the War by Jaroslav Hasek
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain